"They're not unbeatable." Birmingham City's Kristian Pedersen plays down Leeds United threat

Pedersen played down the threat from Leeds by insisting he was confident of completing a home-and-away double and untroubled by the prospect of taking on an in-form Pablo Hernandez on Saturday.

Birmingham are on a streak of five straight losses while Leeds moved back up to second place in the Championship after beating Millwall last weekend but Garry Monk’s City were the first team to scalp Biesa’s in the league this season, winning 2-1 at Elland Road in September.

Left-back Pedersen is expected to go head-to-head with Hernandez, who took his combined tally of goals and assists to 23 with two strikes against Millwall.

Told that he would be coming up against one of the best players in the Championship, Pedersen told the Birmingham Mail: “Right, but we won against Leeds last time. Yes they’re a leading team in the league but my personal mentality is I don’t care who it is.

“They’re not unbeatable and they’ve lost games. We’ll do our best to make it difficult for Leeds.”

City lost nine points via EFL sanctions last month following a breach of Financial Fair Play restrictions, a penalty which ended their slim hopes of making the play-offs and left Monk with work to do to avoid relegation.

Birmingham’s win at Leeds was their first of the season, nine games into the Championship term, and Pedersen joked: “Which means we’re going to win again and start having a good run again! The fans deserve it and the club deserve to be in a higher position than we are now.”